Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository

Bliss Llewellyn took a deep breath and held it for as long as she could, willing her tense muscles to relax. She had tracked the beast inside the butcher shop, had watched its arched, furry body slink in through the back door. This was it. She’d been in Hunting Valley for three days now, and had combed every inch of it, which wasn’t too hard, really. It was barely a town—the downtown area consisting of one honky-tonk bar and several boarded-up storefronts. It was the kind of place most people left as soon as they had the means; the kind of place for those left behind.

Bliss crept as quietly as she could across the wet stone floor. This was the end of her chase. Everything she had done so far had led to this moment. The beast was lurking somewhere within the darkness, waiting. She would have to be quick. She had seen the carnage it had left in the woods, had followed the trail, and now she was at its end. Tame the hounds, her mother had told her. Bring them back to the fold. She would have to bring it to heel, somehow. Her eyes caught a flicker of light in the distance. In the back of the room she noticed the door to the meat locker was open, revealing a carcass swaying like an inverted pendulum. So that was why her surroundings smelled of blood.

She closed her eyes so she could hear. Concentrate. She pinched her nose. The smell was distracting. When the Visitor had been her only contact to the outside (or was that inside?) world, she found she could listen better if she closed her eyes and withdrew from her other senses. She was human now, with human limitations. She could no longer listen to a conversation conducted fifty feet away; she could no longer lift objects five times her body weight; she could no longer do any of the things she had taken for granted when her blood was blue.

But even if she was only human, she was used to the dark. The Visitor had taught her that. She heard a clock tick, the sound of a hook grinding against a chain, heard the soft click of claws against the concrete—the beast, stirring . . . and then there, barely perceptible, was the sound of breathing. There was someone else in the room, someone other than the creature. But where? And who?

The horrible clicking grew louder, and Bliss heard a snarl, deep and primeval and vicious, and then the sound of breathing became louder, more desperate—suddenly a scream from beyond the doorway. Bliss leapt from her hiding place and ran toward it.

Clang!

A knife fell to the floor. She swiveled in its direction, then stopped. The knife was a ruse, a distraction. The beast was behind her now; it was trying to steer her away from the door. She could see it watching her from the shadows, its crimson eyes staring at her balefully. Did it think she was stupid? She might not have her vampire abilities anymore, but that didn’t mean she was completely useless. She was still fast. She was still coordinated. She had the speed and skill of an athlete.

The beast snorted and raked its claws across the concrete. It was angry and getting ready to jump. Bliss figured it was now or never. She pushed her way toward the open door, clambering onto a table and spraying a dozen knives across the room. The beast leapt but she was faster, and when she reached the oversized steel door, she grabbed the handle and, using its weight as a pivot, swung around so that she pulled it closed behind her. The freezer slammed shut with a thick, wet sucking sound that made her wonder if this had been a good idea. How much air was in here? No time to worry about that now. She grabbed a knife hanging on the wall and jammed the lock closed.

She could hear the creature throwing its weight against the bolted door, making the archway shake. It was larger and more dangerous than she had thought. Tame the hounds? She would be lucky if she got out of here alive.

She looked around. There were a dozen or so carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The air was rancid, metallic. She pushed her way through the animal corpses to the back of the freezer, toward the sound of ragged breathing.

On the floor of the meat locker lay a boy, no older than she was, chained to the back wall. Next to him were a cutting board and a band saw. A meat hook swung above his head, crusted with blood and rust. The tiled walls were splattered a deep shade of scarlet. The boy’s skin was blue, his hair caked with filth . . . there were ugly red marks around his wrists and neck, where he was bound with heavy iron shackles. Dear God, what was going on here? Bliss wondered, her stomach churning. . . .

The beast couldn’t have done this alone. There was something else going on. Bliss shivered, goose bumps appearing on her skin. Now that she wasn’t a vampire, her body did not control its temperature as well as it used to. But was it fear or the cold that had caused the rows of tiny bumps? For the first time in her journey, Bliss wondered if she was in over her head.

She bent down to touch the boy’s face. It was still warm at least. She placed a tender hand on his bony shoulder. “You are going to be okay,” she told him, and wondered if she was also consoling herself.